Globalisation marches on Malaysia stealthily...

And Malaysia will pay a heavy price for being caught sleeping.
Especially when our so-called national leaders wake up one day, and the truth dawns that we are a nation of Rip van Winkles.

Ignorance is bliss, they say, but this is only for the children and maybe for the teenagers. It is no excuse for grownups and adults, and that includes Mat Rempit, UMNO Youth and putera, MCA Youth, and puteri and What MIC clones have you.

Sometimes, yes, Ignorance can be bliss, in small things.
But on national, and international affairs like trade and commerce, Ignorance can be that Evil Iblis.
The world marketplace is a jungle, and the fittest will survive. Back to basci Darwinian Theory of Evolution and perpetuation of the species. I am a God-fearing man, but out there in the Economic and Business Battle-fields, prayers won't get any nation or tribe very far.
It's knowledge, information technology, intelligence and mental reparedness that are Today's weapons for battle.

Will Malaysia be able to keep pace with changing times, especially in the world marketplace of ideas and knowledge, fast-changing information technology so that we remain competitive relative to other nations?


The picture is not optimistic.

From The NST today, page 7 headlines:

Malaysia ranks 25th
on ease off doing busines

Desi: I won't go into details except ask of you: Are you surprised that an immdiate neighbour -- yes, SINGAPORE! -- topped the list of most business-friendly nation?
Now don't anyone start any anti-Sinland diatribe against Desi because I normally don't venture into any comparison except when there is an official survey report, hence it's independent. And don't any smartalec start saying: Oh, it's not totally independent as not all relevant factors have been taken into account ... Less of such crap will you, Mat Rempit or Mat Dungu!

But I'll reproduce in full the second report,with some highlights mine (THUS BOLDED) viz:

Report: 'Business
friendliness' low


KUALA LUMPUR: The World Bank has pointed out Malaysia’s strengths and weaknesses in its annual business friendly report released yesterday.

Scores from the report, aggregated from 10 sub-categories, showed the country’s standings drop in several areas compared to the previous year, namely in dealing with licences, employing workers, trading cross-borders, enforcing contracts and closing businesses.

To start a business in Malaysia, entrepreneurs may have to go through nine steps compared to the 8.2 steps taken on the average in the region, over 30 days on average, and at a cost equal to 19.7 per cent of gross national income (GNI) per capita.

The steps, time and costs of complying with licensing and permit requirements for ongoing operations is a staggering 281 steps at a cost of 78.19 per cent of income per capita, compared to the region’s average of only 17.6 steps.

As for property, it will take about 144 days to register a property in Malaysia compared to only 85.8 days on average in the region.

It takes about 31 steps and 450 days to enforce commercial contracts in Malaysia.

The time and cost required to resolve bankruptcies in Malaysia takes 2.25 years and costs about 14.50 per cent of the estate value. The recovery rate, expressed in terms of how many cents on the dollar claimants recover from the insolvent firm, is 38.69.

The report showed the costs involved in importing and exporting a standardised shipment of goods in the country is better compared to the region.

Malaysia scored higher against the region in terms of investor protection, which include transparency of transactions, liability for self-dealing, shareholders’ ability to sue officers and directors for misconduct and Strength of Investor Protection Index.


~~~~~~~~~

DESI: I have said this many times, the latest was in conjunction with the Merdeka Essay Series, that what our country's leaders fail to do and deliver in preparing NegaraKU to face the international competition out there, by default this role will be surrendered to the maurauding forces of Globalisation. From my article, I reprise from the subsection titled:

The American Conundrum

"The issue of Americana features prominently today because I'm only spending time on one point -- Globalisation. We are "Americanised" in many ways though we may not be consciously aware. Just check the movies and entertainment you enjoy -- a ballpark estimate is that some 50% come from the great United States we deem the big, bad Brother. For only one reason, that since the Cold War ended, the USA has become the sole super-power remaining, though mainland China is doing a Hop, Step and Jump to catch up. Leave Russia and Fidel Castro alone -- reminds Desi of that mad Roman emperor strumming, or fiddling, a musical instrument while the city burned...

Malaysia has to learn from history. On which side is our bread buttered?
We want to trade more with western nations, led by the number one trading power, the US; simultaneously, Islamist voices are condeming anything "western" as decadent, devilish and ... (ER can fill in the blanks).

National leaders play to the gallery, often caught speaking with forked tongues. The Little Emperor/Napoleon as termed by our esteemed Prime Minister Pak Lah, wears no clothes on National Day parade, but he says he's one for Transparency. So many fellow Bloggers have recorded prime, naked? examples -- also equivalent to the proverbial "Seeing the speck in thy neighbour's eye, but not seeing the plank in one's own eye".

What our leaders can't deliver, then by default external forces would throw our country to the wild, wild winds of change. The Age of the Internet and information technology -- accompanied by the march of Globalisation -- will mean we ignore the external factors of power and influence on our nation's destiny at our own peril.

While short-sighted leaders fight for their loot or bounty, especially when the economic pie is getting squeezed and smaller, we find ourselves, many innocents among the silent majority, being pushed nearer and nearer to Doomsville. Let's try to prevent the flagship called NegaraKu being mis-directed by clueless pilots towards the Abyss."

~~~~~~~

DESI: Bids thee an Adieu w'ile the hoRst Googles for "Rip van Winkle" -- lazy bum that he's! -- will do a Cut&Paste after a tea-break, Can? And that of course, my dear EsteemedReaders, is a rhetorical question. For nu'ecomers to this Blog, which I expect a deluge will occur after Desiderata got onto a Top 10 List (nu'es broken by a Bravegal from Penang Who's Not Afraid of KL Wolves, virginal or non -- yesterday, but the tsunami did not come, so far. I wait with Miss Patience, which is preached as a Virtue. Also newcomers better get used to being A-bused with much Digression/Aggression, one of Blogosphere's occupational hazards. The hazard is on thy part, not mine. Desi's is the privilege of Digression.



PS @3.19PM:

From wikipedia, oh dear! I had overslept by a century, am I now in 2105? Howsy, mave sm, Anak Merdeka, Helen: Art thou with Desi steal?



Rip Van Winkle
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Rip van Winkle)

Rip Van Winkle is a short story by Washington Irving published in 1819, as well as the name of the story's fictional protagonist. It was part of a collection of stories entitled The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon. The story has become a part of cultural mythology: even for those who have never read the original story, "Rip Van Winkle" means a person who is inexplicably unaware of current events."

The story, written while Irving was staying with his sister Sarah and her husband Henry van Wart in Birmingham, England, is set in the years before and after the American Revolutionary War. A villager of Dutch descent escapes his nagging wife by wandering up Kaaterskill Clove near his home town of Palenville, New York in the Catskill Mountains. After various adventures (in one version of the tale, he encounters the spirits of Henry Hudson and his crew playing ninepins at the top of Kaaterskill Falls), he settles down under a shady tree and falls asleep. He wakes up 20 years later and returns to his village. He finds out that his wife is dead and his close friends have died in a war or gone somewhere else. He immediately gets into trouble when he hails himself a loyal subject of George III, not knowing that in the meantime the American Revolution has taken place and he is not supposed to be a loyal subject of any Hanoverian any longer.~~*wink* winkle, *wink*